Ahhh, Paris...the city of Louvre

So, we thought we would start by saying we are so sorry we have been behind on blogging, but what with travelling to 3 countries in such a short period of time, we were a little frazzled! So this is a really long (but funny) blog about our adventures in Paris.

Paris brought with it more than a few surprises, the first being the people. So we hear from everyone for about a month straight how to watch out for Parisians and how they are so rude and mean to you, and of course we were dreading our trip to France and considering our options for avoiding all human contact for 48 hours. Well! when we arrived we were greeted with a slew of some of the nicest people we have ever met worldwide, nevermind in France! We thought our luck may run out when we finally arrived at the hostel but lo and behold, they were even kinder than anyone else.

So Paris, much like Barcelona was a whirlwind tour to put it lightly. We managed to get most of the major sights out of the way within a 2 day period.

Our first stop--with backpacks still in tow (ugh)--was Notre Dame. Funny thing about cathedrals....they aren't too keen on letting people in with oversized luggage, ie 20 lb backpacks. BUT, if you are stuck behind a New Zealand couple who offer to walk closely in front of you in order to help you sneak the backpacks in by your feet, then you're sorted. Also, not quite sure if you have to pay or not....we didn't.
Now, for those of you who have seen or read The Da Vinci Code, may be aware of those gold stars in the ground that he talks about located around Paris. We found one outside of Notre Dame, but had to step on a few toes (literally) to get a picture of it.

The next stop was the Pantheon, which neither of us had ever heard much of, cost €5 to get into. We thought this was insultingly expensive. I mean, the Notre Dame Cathedral was free (we think?) and everyone has heard of that! So you can see on facebook that we took some lovely photos of the outside.

After, we dropped our bags off into our shady hostel (hey I said the people were nice, not the hostel). Shady is putting it in a nice way. Imagine The Shining with French subtitles crossed with the movie Hostel and you have something with about 50% of the creepiness of this hostel. Paint (if you can call it paint anymore...I think we were looking at the insulation) was chipped everywhere, our ceiling was at a slope, and the lock looked to be about as secure as Irish passport control. However, it had a lovely balcony and free (ish...another Notre Dame incident) internet, so we were happy!

The next stop was the Musee D'Orsay. Beautiful...but definitely can make a person (guess who) ashamed to be American at times. You can see where Europe and the rest of the world gets their not so nice opinion about good ol U.S. of A. The majority of the Americans in the Musee D'Orsay were loud, talking on their phones, and being all around obnoxiously ignorant to the artwork and other people around them.

We then eventually made it to the Eiffel Tower. We white-knuckled the ascent to the very top of it--no literally, we did; we are both only so-so about heights. The view was worth the heart palpitations.

In the evening, as you do on a typical Tuesday evening, we took a boat trip up the Seine as the sun was setting and the Paris night life was just beginning. We took about 100 pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up (John has threatened to send me to P.A.--photographaholics anonymous at the end of this trip).

The next day we awoke happily to find all of our limbs and organs still intact, with none of our items missing. We headed off to the Louvre. In the rain. Fortunately, our saving grace was the bakery just outside the hostel. For breakfast we got a baguette with chocolate chips baked into it. That's right. Chocolate. Chips. Greatest invention yet. After the Louvre we dropped back in again to the bakery...twice. Both before and after we picked up our luggage.
Oh yeah, the Louvre wasn't bad either.

We then made it to the celebrity cemetary. Our one and only goal being to see Oscar Wilde's grave, which was the most pleasant surprise! Here we are, thinking we won't be able to tell it from any other grave in the whole damn cemetary, and this is a big cemetary. Yet incredibly, we found it with great ease as it was pink. No, it isn't painted pink, it's not pink marble--Oscar Wilde's gravestone is covered in kisses and "I love you Oscar's" in various languages. Basically the best de-facing ever.

Our trip was spectacular in Paris and brought about a lot of pleasant surprises. The only thing we'd caution about is to bring a magnifying glass to find the metros because the only way you'd find them is if you fell into it.